Explanation: The view was worth the trip. Battling high winds, cold temperatures, and low oxygen, the trek to near the top of the volcano Santa Maria in Guatemala -- while carrying sensitive camera equipment -- was lonely and difficult. Once set up, though, the camera captured this breathtaking vista during the early morning hours of February 28. Visible on the ground are six volcanoes of the Central America Volcanic Arc, including Fuego, the Volcano of Fire, which is seen erupting in the distance. Visible in the sky, in separate exposures taken a few minutes later, are many stars much further...

The ship that led Christopher Columbus' mission to discover America has been found after 500 years, it has been claimed. A recent expedition has left experts 'confident' a wreck found off the north coast of Haiti is the the Santa Maria. The 58foot ship was the flagship of the expectation, but its final whereabouts have never been known - until now. The Santa María was belived to be a 58 ft (17.7 m) long boat, described as 'very little larger than 100 toneladas' (About 100 tons, or tuns). It was used as the flagship for the expedition, along with the...

-excerpt- Major Gerson da Rosa Ferreira, overseeing rescue efforts at the scene for the military police, told reporters that 159 bodies had already been identified and removed from the nightclub in the southern city of Santa Maria.

CORPUS CHRISTI — The city is likely to commit $20,000 toward restoring the one ship in the Columbus replica fleet that's still floating, Mayor Henry Garrett said Monday, describing a proposed partnership with the Consulate of Spain in Houston. "I believe spending $20,000 to get the ship in tip-top shape would be worth it," he said. Under the proposed agreement, the city's money would pay for iron and wood to restore the Niña, which is part of a replica fleet of the ships that Christopher Columbus sailed in 1492. In exchange, a group of donors that includes the Mitchell Foundation...

Two sheep stranded without water on a rocky ledge above a highway have defied efforts to shoo them to safety. Officials from fire, wildlife and law enforcement departments on Wednesday shot non-lethal ammunition, explosives and water hoses at the sheep, and let loose dogs, threw rocks, blared sirens and hollered at them. The ram and ewe, however, refused to scale a steep trail that leads off the ledge 50 yards above Highway 166. "They're like a person. Do you want to take a chance or stay where it's safe?" said supervisory wildlife biologist Joe Bennett of the U.S. Department of...

WESTWOOD ONE LAUNCHES THE MONICA CROWLEY SHOW --New Program to Air Saturdays, Noon - 3 p.m. ET-- Beginning Saturday, April 1, 2006 New York, NY Monday, Mar 20, 2006 - Westwood One (NYSE: WON) is proud to announce the national launch of The Monica Crowley Show, the three-hour talk program hosted by author and news personality Monica Crowley. The show begins Saturday, April 1, 2006, and will air from noon to 3 p.m. ET. The Monica Crowley Show will debut on major market stations across the country including: WABC-AM New York, WTKK-FM Boston and WTNT-AM Washington DC. The show will...

Michael Jackson is surely not sleeping well these nights. In lieu of having him take the stand at his child-molestation trial in Santa Maria, his attorneys played nearly three hours of outtakes from the infamous Martin Bashir TV documentary, in which a tipsy Jackson revealed that the way he really loves to sleep is onstage under seven spotlights, all on him. Presumably, when the spotlights dim, what's next best is getting an endless string of little boys to share his bed. The sad truth is that were Jackson any other 46-year-old man with a history of alcohol use and prescription...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- A jury acquitted Michael Jackson yesterday of molesting a 13-year-old cancer survivor at his Neverland ranch -- exonerating the pop star who insisted that he was the victim of mother-and-son con artists and a prosecutor with a vendetta. Jurors also unanimously acquitted Mr. Jackson of giving the boy alcohol and of conspiring to imprison his accuser and the boy's family at the storybook estate. Mr. Jackson had faced nearly 20 years in prison. "Justice is done. The man's innocent. He always was," said his chief lawyer, Thomas Mesereau Jr. The verdict was a total legal victory,...

The prosecutors in Michael Jackson's child molestation and conspiracy trial apparently feel they've already won their case. On Wednesday night, the whole lot of them — DA Tom Sneddon, Ron Zonen, Gordon Auchincloss, their wives and families — all celebrated at the Hitching Post restaurant in Casmalia. The Hitching Post, cousin of the Buellton restaurant featured in the movie "Sideways," is considered the best restaurant in the greater Santa Maria area. Sneddon was so happy that he actually embraced celebrity crime reporter Aphrodite Jones. She told me he was in a jubilant mood, and the most outgoing of all the...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (June 10) - About 2,200 members of the media received credentials to cover Michael Jackson's trial - more than the O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson murder trials combined and enough to form a vast, humming tent city outside the modest courthouse. Reporters from every continent but Antarctica are covering a story that has attracted perhaps the largest-ever media contingent for a criminal trial. The satellite trucks and portable toilets function at all hours, since foreign correspondents must file past midnight to meet deadlines an ocean away. Major TV networks have committed dozens of staff members. Nearly four...

There was lots of hype around celebrities for Michael Jackson’s defense, but their performances have been less than riveting. SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- The man with the oversized chin walked confidently to the witness stand, turned to the court clerk and held up his right hand. "My name is Jay Leno. L-E-N-O," he said loudly, as if anybody didn't know. With that, the biggest name in the big-name trial of Michael Jackson took his turn before jurors, following actor Macaulay Culkin, preceding comedian Chris Tucker, and highlighting the celebrity current that has rippled through this case. Even celebrities who didn't...

MICHAEL Jackson's family wants the judge in the pop legend's child molestation trial to bend the rules and let them gather en masse around him for the fateful moment when jurors deliver their verdict. Family aides said today they were hoping that Judge Rodney Melville will give Jackson more than his allotted six seats for family members in the courtroom. "The family wants to be with Michael when the verdict is read ... everybody wants to be there to give support," Jackson family lawyer Debra Opri told reporters. Opri said she hoped special dispensation could be made for Jackson to...

The child molestation case against Michael Jackson went to the jury Friday after the defense begged the panel to acquit the singer, portraying Jackson as a victim of grifters trying to pull "the biggest con of their careers." "They are trying to profit from Michael Jackson. They think they have pulled it off. They are just waiting for one thing — your verdict." Prosecutors painted a vastly different picture — one of Jackson as a serial child molester and his Neverland Ranch as a predator's lair. "Why would Mr. Jackson do it?" Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen said. "Because...

SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- A former security supervisor at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch testified Monday she never saw the pop star exhibit any illegal or improper behavior toward young boys. The supervisor, Violet Silva, also admitted she could not get into Jackson's bedroom suite unless it had been unlocked from the inside. Under cross-examination by the prosecution in Jackson's trial on child molestation charges, Silva conceded there were "some occasions" when boys stayed alone with the entertainer in the main residence. She said security staff generally went into the house only when summoned. Silva said that based on her...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's former wife wiped away tears on Wednesday as she testified that the pop icon called her for help after the broadcast of a damaging British documentary in 2003 and that she agreed in the hope of seeing their family reunited. But Debbie Rowe said that contrary to prosecution assertions she was not bullied into giving an interview about her famous ex-husband and refused to follow a script. Rowe, the mother of two of Jackson's three children, smiled at the singer as she took the witness stand and identified herself as "Deborah Rowe-Jackson." Prosecutors...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (Reuters) - The judge in the Michael Jackson molestation trial on Thursday barred prosecutors from calling an expert on domestic violence they hoped would explain the apparently erratic behavior of the accuser's mother for jurors. Judge Rodney Melville also said he would allow evidence showing that Jackson's then-13-year-old accuser and younger brother had masturbated while looking at the pop star's pornography, potentially bolstering defense claims that the boys had run wild at Neverland. Both rulings were setbacks for the prosecution, which is in the final stages of presenting its case to the jury of eight women and...

CAMP LEJEUNE -- They called him the "Thriller from Manila" because he was the shortest man in Weapons Company carrying the heaviest machine gun into battle at An Nasiriyah, Iraq. That was in March. Now he carries something else: the title of American citizen. When Lance Cpl. Oj John B. Santamaria, 21, a machine gunner from Manila, Philippines, was injured in Iraq and told he would not be going back to fight the war, he decided to become an American citizen. While he was in a partially medicated haze at Bethesda naval hospital in Maryland and fighting nightmares about his...

Columbus Day approaches and this year has a special meaning. Christopher Columbus is a carrier of Western Civilization and the very values attacked by terrorists on September 11. To the "politically correct," Columbus Day is an occasion to be mourned. They have mourned, they have attacked, and they have intimidated schools across the country into replacing Columbus Day celebrations with "ethnic diversity" days. The politically correct view is that Columbus did not discover America, because people had lived here for thousands of years. Worse yet, it's claimed, the main legacy of Columbus is death and destruction. Columbus is routinely vilified...